Apparently I Had a Lot to Say About This: A Few Requests from Your Friendly Neighborhood Spoonie

Because positionality is important for this essay, I have to say I know better than most how it feels to have a body “colonized through the discursive practices of the natural sciences, particularly the discourses of biology and medicine” (7). It’s a hard thing to explain if you haven’t experienced it. (If you have, I'm sorry.) Two weeks ago, instead of being in class with all of you discussing Foucault (and crying because he broke my brain), I was laying on a table having tubes and wires removed from and inserted into my body, without anesthesia or pain relief (so still crying, but probably less than I assume y'all were, honestly). The radiologist braced his hand on my chest to stabilize himself while he worked. He moved it when he realized what he was doing. It wasn’t a malicious or intentional grope; at that moment, to him, I was just a body. A wrong body. He forgot there was a person in there. That happens sometimes—they’ll lift your gown in a crowded room, poke something that hurts you because it looks weird and they want to know what it is, withhold pain medication or anesthesia because it saves them time, ask your husband about your symptoms because you’re crying and they don’t want to deal with it. These might not sound like discursive practices, but they happen to us because of how doctors think about us and talk about us. 

“Disability studies sets aside the 'natural' and medical model of disability as accidental disease, trauma, deficit, or defect, using and extending the insights of feminist, postmodern, and postcolonial theory and social and rhetorical studies of science to analyze disability as a sociopolitical construct” (10). I’d like to provide an example of that. The natural, medical, or deficit models of disability say that I am disabled because I am neurologically abnormal, my stomach is paralyzed, and my blood is never where it’s supposed to be. The social model of disability says that I am disabled because I can’t participate in the sacred American tradition of overeating on holidays (or any other day, but Thanksgiving specifically sucks), can’t drive or travel normally, can’t stay upright for more than a few hours at a time or adhere to standard dress codes and attendance policies, and thus, can’t work outside my house. I've been excluded from polite society for so long that I sometimes feel feral, like a burden to my spouse and a disappointment to my family, and socially, capitalistically, I know I am less valuable, less person, to some people because I produce and contribute less to society. That's sociopolitical disability. (Is this TMI? If so, my bad. My disability is pretty invisible unless I lift my shirt or throw up/pass out in public, so I sometimes feel weird claiming it and go overboard proving it.)

Could you guess I had a hard time choosing what to talk about this week? I was really torn. Medical misogyny almost won out, because doctors really hate women (especially women of color) and people should know that. Femininity is, after all, the first deformity, right, Aristotle? I also thought it would be really fun and timely to review Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness, which is a book written by autistic rhetorician Melanie Yergeau, who developed a theory called neurological queerness, situated at the intersection of queer theory and disability studies. She’s unbelievably brilliant and cool and I’m mild-to-moderately obsessed with her.  

But I wanted to be useful (don't analyze that). I didn’t want to bitch or fangirl (too much). So, I decided to share tips and resources to help us all be better allies to our disabled colleagues and students in higher education. Obviously, disabled people are not a monolith. I can’t pretend to speak for everyone. But the primary principle of disability advocacy rhetoric is “nothing about us without us,” so I have come as an emissary of the disabled academics community to share some of my extremely limited wisdom.

1.  BELIEVE US. When we say we’re tired, we’re tired. When we say we need a minute, an extension, an accommodation, we mean it. We’re not lazy. We do not want your attention. We're not taking advantage of the system or any of that other gross shit people say. We’re exhausted, we’re busy, we’ve got brain fog, or stress has exacerbated our symptoms. Cut us a break. When we say we’re fine, we mean that, too. Here’s an autoethnographic account of ableism in higher education by four disabled graduate students. They have a lot to say about this. I cosign pretty much all of it.
2. Advocate for us, but INCLUDE US in our own advocacy. Disabled self-advocacy is a thing, and it’s great, and you should listen. Parents and families of disabled people are also often good advocates, but they are not substitutes for self-advocacy, and it’s dangerous to position them that way. Protect the agency of disabled people. Attend diversity training for disability advocacy and accessibility, and if it isn't offered to you, ask for it.
3. Traveling for conferences is out of the realm of possibility for some disabled students and scholars. Include disabled people on your planning committees when you plan conferences. Ask about accessibility when you attend them. Provide opportunities to participate remotely, and very importantly, to network remotely. We are missing out on opportunities because we are stuck at home. And abled academics are missing our perspectives.
4. Accommodate disability in your writing classroom. Intellectual or social/communicative disability is an important consideration here, and those accommodations are within your control. Autistic students have cognitive differences that mean they sometimes don’t respond well to process-based writing pedagogy. Learning disabled students sometimes require “student-centered instruction, orality as an alternative form of learning, and peer tutoring” (9). Adjust accordingly.
5. Being disabled is expensive. So, so, so expensive. Accessibility is affected not only by disability, but by the intersection of class and disability. Don’t place undue financial burdens on your students, and make sure your disabled students are being provided with accessibility resources.

Anyway. Disability also means that sometimes just being a person is exhausting. I know that's true for everyone sometimes, but it's true for disabled people most of the time. Be cool. And don't vote for Republicans. They're terrible.